Artificial intelligence (AI) helps marketers automate activities and campaigns at scale in a way we've never seen before.
According to our recent survey with DMI members, the primary benefits of integrating AI into marketing efforts are automation of routine tasks (68%), improved customer experience (46%), improved targeting and segmentation (45%), enhanced personalization (44%), and predictive analysis (39%).
So, there are many applications for AI in marketing, but there are also lots of AI tools, and they're coming at us fast!
This can make it overwhelming for marketers to know where to start with AI and see that there are many tools out there (not just ChatGPT) that can help gain customer insights, drive personalization, and boost efficiency.
To help you pick the right AI tool for your goal, we've compiled a list of the best ones available for a number of digital marketing activities:
- AI tools for audience research
- AI tools for customer journey mapping
- AI tools for idea generation and content research
- AI tools for keyword research
- AI tools for trend analysis and forecasting
- AI tools for competitor monitoring
- AI tools for influencer research
- AI tools for sales automation
- AI tools for social media management and advertising
- AI tools for writing and content generation
What is an AI Marketing Tool?
An AI marketing tool is a platform or application that uses AI technology to enhance marketing activities and make data-driven decisions.
These tools leverage AI algorithms, natural language processing, machine learning, and data analytics to automate processes, analyze data, and provide insights to optimize marketing strategies and campaigns.
Examples of AI marketing tools include chatbots, predictive analytics platforms, recommendation engines, and content generation systems.
What are the Benefits of Using AI Marketing Tools?
The use of AI tools is becoming more widespread across industries. Grand View Research projects that AI will have an annual growth rate of 37% between 2023 and 2030 - no small feat in just seven years.
There’s a reason for this prediction - AI has huge benefits for marketers and marketing departments which are:
- Drives efficiency
- Boosts productivity
- Saves time
- Improves personalization
- Enhances customer care
- Reduces cost
- Enables scalability
- Enhances audience targeting
- Gives real-time insights
- Generates and optimizes content
Ultimately, AI tools empower businesses to make better decisions, work smarter and deliver more value to their business and stakeholders.
What is the Best AI Marketing Tool?
With so many AI tools out there, it’s no surprise that marketers are wondering which one is the best. While lots of AI tools are still in the early stages or evolving based on what they learn through interactions and prompts, there is one that stands out right now!
Just to make sure, we asked our LinkedIn community of marketers to tell us what they were using and found most effective. By an overwhelming majority of 86%, people responded that ChatGPT was the frontrunner.
AI Tools for Digital Marketing
There are a number of great AI tools that can help enhance your digital marketing activities. The tool that’s ‘best’ for you depends on the company, industry, budget, and goals.
Here are some great all-in-one AI tools for digital marketing, followed by ones for specific functions:
- Sprout Social can handle a range of marketing functions from social media and customer care to digital marketing and competitive intelligence (including sentiment analysis).
- Zapier uses AI to enhance and streamline a range of functions such as sales and customer success operations, content and video, and PR and social media.
- HubSpot uses AI to conduct company research, build websites, draft prospecting emails, enhance data analysis, and generate social media copy.
AI Tools for Audience Research
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As a marketer, it’s crucial to understand the interests, needs, and pain points of your audience. Without that, you’ll create content that doesn’t talk to the people you want to attract and engage.
Here are some useful AI tools for audience research:
- Answer Socrates provides insights into the types of questions that people are searching about.
- SparkToro is a powerful audience research tool that gathers data about potential customers.
- Google Trends helps you discover content that is currently resonating with audiences.
AI Tools for Customer Journey Mapping
Do you know what your customers are doing when they are on your website? Do you know where your prospects and customers come from?
If not, you need to understand the journey of your customer so you know the channel and campaign where they first encountered your brand to the touchpoint where they converted. Here are some AI tools to help you:
- Kissmetrics analyzes customer data to gain insights on customer behavior and brand interactions.
- Mixpanel enables you to better understand your customers by analyzing their behavior and interactions.
- Amplitude analyzes the customer journey to unearth friction on the path to conversions and identify what works well in the campaign.
- Semrush Persona enables you to build buyer personas using AI-powered persona templates.
AI Tools for Idea Generation & Content Research
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One of the hardest things as a marketer is to come up with fresh and exciting content ideas.
Even when you know your buyer personas and have data to give you insight from previous campaigns, sometimes you just get stuck.
Here are some great AI tools for generating ideas and researching content:
- ChatGPT can help you do initial content research, based on highly detailed prompts.
- Reddit enables you to do content research via its subreddits, which can then be fed into AI tools.
- Consensus is an AI-powered search engine particularly suited for searching research papers.
- Gemini (previously Bard) is a powerful text-based AI tool backed by Google's search engine.
- Milled is an AI tool that helps you research content in email newsletters.
- Clearscope analyzes high-ranking pages to give you ideas on how to create optimized content based on your keyword research.
- MarketMuse can help with content planning, optimization, and performance monitoring, as well as competitor analysis.
- Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine particularly useful for generating ideas, based on cited sources.
AI Tools for Keyword Research
Keywords enable the perfect marriage between SEO and content. They help you tap into what people are searching for online and help search engines like Google rank your content.
Knowing and using the right keywords can give a company the edge. Here are some tools that can help:
- ChatGPT can help you identify keywords based on topic or audience research.
- 360 Marketing Tool create thousands of relevant keyword ideas based on your seed keywords while also providing essential metrics like as search traffic, keyword difficulty, and click-through rate.
- UberSuggest is an AI-powered tool for keyword research and integration.
- Clearscope uses AI to suggest the best keywords to integrate into your content.
- KWFinder leverages AI algorithms to provide accurate keyword metrics, including search volume, keyword difficulty, and trend data along with localized keyword research.
- Keyword Tool generates long-tail keyword suggestions from Google's autocomplete feature and provides keyword metrics such as search volume, CPC, and competition level.
- Keyword Keg creates keyword suggestions from search engines and databases such as Amazon, and YouTube along with advanced filtering and competitor analysis.
- SpyFu Keyword Research tool analyzes competitor keywords, identifies top-performing keywords, and uncovers insights for optimizing PPC and SEO.
AI Tools for Trend Analysis and Forecasting
Trend analysis and forecasting in marketing is the examination of data (past and present) and market conditions to identify patterns, trends, and potential outcomes.
The aim is to help marketers anticipate market trends, predict future outcomes, and make informed strategic decisions that drive business growth and help stay ahead of competitors.
Here are some AI tools to help you with trend analysis and forecasting:
- Talkwalker uses AI-powered tools to help alert you to upcoming trends.
- TrendKite is an AI tool for forecasting and analyzing likely trends.
- Zoho Social helps you visualize key data and develop insights to predict trends.
- Seismic uses AI algorithms to predict trends so you can then adjust your marketing strategies to optimize ROI.
- Bloomreach offers a suite of AI tools enabling trend analysis and forecasting.
AI Tools for Competitor Monitoring
Competition can help drive innovation and spark creativity, but it can also be a challenge if you’re losing customers to another brand.
That’s why it’s important to do a competitive analysis so you know where you stand in comparison to other companies in the sector, but also understand your strengths and weaknesses.
Here are some AI tools that can help you monitor competitors:
- Rival IQ is an AI tool that helps brands conduct competitor monitoring.
- Brandwatch uses AI to monitor the online presence of competitor brands and offer real-time insights.
- Sprout Social is an AI tool that helps you understand how rival brands are performing on social media.
AI Tools for Influencer Research
Working with influencers can greatly increase the reach of your content. However, you need to ensure that the influencer aligns with your brand values and business goals.
Here are some AI tools you can use for influencer research:
- Upfluence uses AI algorithms to identify potential influencer partnerships based on social metrics and fit with brand identity.
- Influencity uses AI to develop an Audience Quality Score to help you identify the best-suited influencers for your campaign.
- AspireIQ uses AI algorithms to connect you with the most appropriate influencers, based on their previous campaign performance.
AI Tools for Sales Automation
Sales automation software is a convenient and cost-effective way for marketers to generate highly personalized email campaigns that build loyalty and communications with ease (and at scale).
In addition to email campaigns, sales automation software is also effective for scheduling prospect appointments, prioritizing leads, and gathering valuable data.
Let’s take a look at some of the best tools for AI marketing sales right now.
- Outreach helps marketers transform sales data into actionable insights and automate workflows while testing engagement activities and key messaging across channels.
- Gong helps shorten sales cycles while boosting team communication and productivity, making it an ideal tool for sales coaching.
- PandaDoc allows marketing teams to automate the creation and distribution of sales contracts and proposals while incorporating useful features such as electronic signatures and workflow automation.
- Zymplify empowers sales teams with advanced lead generation and email marketing tools while offering comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) features and analytics.
AI Tools for Social Media Management & Advertising
Social media management and advertising is a must for any marketer that wants to drive brand awareness, connect with audiences, and boost engagement.
Many AI tools have the ability to automate your social media scheduling, management, and even provide you with analytics and insights so you can improve campaigns.
Here are some of the best tools for social media management:
- Buffer is a tool that helps schedule, publish, and analyze all your social media content from one dashboard.
- Hootsuite is a powerful tool that helps you manage all your social media accounts from one place, as well as analyze social media metrics and track engagement.
- Sprinklr is a social media management tool that uses AI to automate social media listening, monitoring, and engagement.
AI Tools for Writing & Content Generation
The written word is one of the most powerful tools in a marketer’s toolkit. From blogs and whitepapers to press releases and product descriptions, great content helps drive the customer journey.
Here are some of the best AI tools for writing and content generation:
- ChatGPT can help with content generation based on detailed prompts.
- Copy.ai can help generate high-quality content for a variety of marketing materials, including product descriptions, blog posts, and social media content.
- Grammarly uses AI to help improve your writing by providing real-time grammar and spell-checking, as well as suggestions for improving clarity and readability.
- Writesonic can help generate high-quality content for a variety of marketing materials, including product descriptions, blog posts, and social media content.
- Copysmith is an AI tool that can help you generate high-quality content for a variety of marketing materials, including product descriptions, blog posts, and social media content.
Conclusion
The world of digital marketing is evolving rapidly, and AI tools are becoming an essential part of any marketer’s toolkit.
Whether you’re looking to automate routine tasks, gain insights into your audience, or generate high-quality content, there’s an AI tool out there that can help you achieve your goals.
By leveraging the power of AI, you can work smarter, not harder, and deliver more value to your business and stakeholders.
Remember, the best AI tool for you will depend on your specific goals, industry, and budget. So, take the time to explore the options available and find the one that best fits your needs.
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